The Torment of Hades. -Met. Korniliy (Titov)
The Holy Fathers teach: “Think of death, and you will never sin.” We must consider the fate that awaits a person who does not think about death, does not prepare for it, does not confess, and does not struggle against their sins.
I had a conversation with a young Old Believer who said: “Vladyka, perhaps there is no hell at all. It was invented because the Lord cannot place His beloved creation, man, into eternal torment. Therefore, I doubt and believe that there is no hell.” Of course, he is not the only one who thinks this way—many do, especially non-believers. Hearing this, I wrote down my thoughts on this matter, which I wish to share with you.
The Gospel describes the end of the world as follows: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live” (John 5:25), and all will come to the Last Judgment. Christ “will sit on the throne of His glory” (Matt. 25:31) to judge and convict sinners of all their wicked deeds, “separating one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matt. 25:32). The righteous (the sheep) the Lord will place on His right side and say: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matt. 25:34). But to the wicked (the goats), whom He will place on His left, He will say: “Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41).
The time of the Second Coming is called the day of God’s wrath because Christ will turn His gaze away from the wicked. Saint John Chrysostom writes that both Gehenna and its torments are unbearable, but the darkness of Gehenna is nothing compared to seeing the gentle Face of Christ turned away and His merciful Eye refusing to look upon us.
The Lord warns of the future, dreadful, unending torments in hell for unrepentant sinners—so terrifying that it is fearful even to hear about them—so that we may avoid such a fate by reflecting on it often with repentance. Thus, Chrysostom says: “The remembrance of Gehenna will prevent you from falling into Gehenna,” and Abba Isaiah adds: “Think of Gehenna so that the deeds leading to it become hateful to you.” The word “Gehenna” symbolically denotes the final place of perdition for sinners. It is a place where, according to the figurative prophecy of Saints Jeremiah and Isaiah, torments never cease: “And they shall go out and look upon the corpses of the men who have transgressed against Me, for their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh” (Isa. 66:24).
The torments of hell are dreadful, in that land of impenetrable darkness, burning with fire, filled with worms, gnashing of teeth, and furious groans. Saint Ephrem the Syrian writes: “There are various kinds of torments, as we have heard in the Gospel. There is outer darkness (Matt. 8:12), which shows that there is another, deeper darkness; the fiery Gehenna (Matt. 5:22) is one place of torment; the gnashing of teeth (Matt. 13:42) is another place; the worm that does not sleep (Mark 9:48) is in yet another place; the lake of fire (Rev. 19:20) is another; Tartarus (2 Pet. 2:4) is its own place; the unquenchable fire (Mark 9:48) is a distinct region; the abyss (Phil. 2:10)… and the bottom of hell is the most torturous place. These torments will be distributed to the wretched, each according to the measure of their sins.”
Some Christians ask whether the torments after death will be physical or merely torments of conscience. From the teachings of the Holy Fathers, it is clear that there will be torments not only of conscience but of various kinds, depending on the sins of each individual.
Some comfort themselves with the thought that hell does not exist because God is love and cannot torment His creation—man. Catholics have invented a special place for the soul after death called purgatory, a kind of neutral zone between heaven and hell, where souls go to atone for sins if they are not entirely ready for heaven. This notion is baseless: Holy Scripture affirms that there is a great chasm between heaven and hell that cannot be crossed (the Gospel parable of the rich man and Lazarus).
Indeed, God is merciful and desires the salvation of all people, but a person cannot be saved without striving toward God. Therefore, He gives us the opportunity during life to labor for the salvation of our soul and, afterward, eternal life. However, by following or not following Christ, we ourselves choose our posthumous fate—to dwell in heaven or in hell. Yes, the Savior is merciful, but by living in sin and not repenting, we offend His gentleness and mercy. Saint John Chrysostom writes: “When you sin, weep and lament not because you will be punished… but because you have offended your Master, who is so gentle, who loves you so much, who cares so much for your salvation that He gave His Son for you.”
Regarding the question of whether it is possible to pray for the alleviation of the torments of sinners in hell, the Life of St. Macarius of Egypt provides an answer. The story is told as follows: While in the desert, St. Macarius came across a human skull on the ground. When he touched it with his staff, he heard what seemed like a sound coming from the skull. Macarius then asked, “Who are you?”
“I was the chief of the pagan priests who lived in this place,” the skull replied. “When you, Abba Macarius, filled with the Spirit of God, take pity on those suffering in hell and pray for us, we receive some relief.”
“What kind of relief do you receive?” Macarius asked. “And what are your torments? Tell me.”
“As far as the heavens are from the earth,” the skull answered with a groan, “so great is the fire in which we are, burning us from head to toe. Yet we cannot see each other’s faces. But when you pray for us, we can see one another a little, and this brings us some comfort.”
Hearing this response, the saint wept and said, “Cursed be the day when man transgressed God’s commandments.” Such mysteries of the torments of hell are revealed to us through the Life of St. Macarius. The text further addresses the question of those who are at the very bottom of hell.
Macarius asked the skull, “Are there any torments worse than yours?”
“Far below us, much deeper, there are many others,” it replied.
“Who, then, is among those most severe torments?” Macarius asked.
“We, who did not know God,” the skull answered, “still experience some of God’s mercy. But those who knew the name of God, yet rejected Him and did not keep His commandments, suffer below us in far harsher and more grievous torments.”
After this, St. Macarius took the skull, buried it in the ground, and departed from that place. This is a stern warning to us Christians to keep God’s commandments.
When St. Macarius was asked why he always remained thin, he replied: “Just as a poker used to turn burning logs is always scorched by the fire, so too a person who directs their mind constantly to the Lord and keeps in memory the dreadful torments of the fiery Gehenna—this fear not only consumes the body but dries up the bones.” The fire of hell has the ability to burn sinners eternally while keeping them intact.
“You may ask,” reflects St. John Chrysostom, “why endure eternal punishment when we sinned only for a short time?” He answers: “For the same reason that a person who commits murder in a single moment is condemned to a lifetime of hard labor.”
Christ, warning us against temptations that lead to the fiery Gehenna, said: “If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:43). The Holy Martyr Clement of Rome explains that this means we must eliminate the causes and thoughts that lead to sin.
In earthly life, a person burns in the fire of passions. On “cooling” and salvation from the fire of sin, the Holy Martyr Habakkuk writes in his Life: “When I was still a priest, a young woman came to me for confession, burdened with many sins, guilty of fornication and all kinds of impurity. She began to recount her sins in detail, weeping in the church before the Gospel. But I, a thrice-wretched physician, became sick myself, burning inside with the fire of lust. It was bitter for me in that hour, so I lit three candles and placed them on the stand, then held my right hand over the flame until the evil burning within me subsided.” Thus, St. Habakkuk, through the flame of a candle, cooled the fire of lust and saved his soul from eternal fire.
God created man as a rational being with free will and the ability to live with God or to reject Him. The fall of Adam and Eve led to their separation from God, and as a result, the earth and all of human nature underwent a change, for outside of God there is neither life, nor truth, nor goodness. Man became a slave to sin and vice and could not overcome the dark demonic forces by his own strength.
Christ came into the world to save perishing humanity, granting freedom to those who follow Him. He says in the Gospel: “I have come into the world so that everyone who believes in Me should not remain in darkness. I have not come to judge the world, but to save the world. He who rejects Me and does not receive My words has a judge: the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day” (John 12:46–48). After Christ’s coming into the world, we are not doomed to dwell in hell after death. In earthly life, the boundary between hell and heaven passes through a person’s soul and heart. Our free choice determines whether our soul and everything around us becomes heaven or hell.
Our sins push us into the kingdom of darkness, and to break free from this captivity, a Christian must constantly struggle against sinful temptation within themselves. If a person does not fight and transgresses God’s commandments, they become a servant of Satan even in this life. All passions and vices from which a person has not freed themselves through repentance make them dependent on demons during life, and it will be very difficult for them after death, which is the separation of soul and body: the soul retains carnal attachments that can no longer be satisfied without a body, causing unimaginably severe and unending torments of hell.
In the parable of the Last Judgment (Matt. 25:45), the Lord says that not only those who commit grave and blatant sins may go to hell, but also those who sin through inaction: “For I was hungry, and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger, and you did not take Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me… Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matt. 25:45).
“In Hades, who will confess thee?” (Ps. 6). Therefore, during our lifetime, we must embark on the path of liberation from carnal attachments, such as alcohol, nicotine, other drugs, lust, or gluttony. For some, the soul suffers during life, and this is not always a bad thing. The torments of conscience—this voice of God—convict us of the evil deeds we commit. This is a beneficial suffering of the soul, through which it can come to repentance and the realization of the need to change one’s life.
Tears of repentance for sins are the most effective means to extinguish the fire awaiting us for our sins. Therefore, let us weep for our sins here so as not to weep in the torments of hell, as the saints teach. For deliverance from the torments of hell, let us turn in prayer to the saints, to our guardian angel, and especially to the Most Holy God-bearer—the Mother of all Christians—who, as a Mother, hears Her children and helps them, interceding before Her Divine Son for our salvation. May the Lord help us in this!